


Come Back Again

by FallenInTheWetTypeWater



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: Angst, Communication Failure, Drama & Romance, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mention of past relationships, Mild Angst, Multi, Mutual Pining, Romance, Slash, Smut, a dream is a wish your heart makes, it all works out in the end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-06 05:53:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21221651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallenInTheWetTypeWater/pseuds/FallenInTheWetTypeWater
Summary: Lister had been dreaming again. The same smegging dream ever since Rimmer had gone “See ya!” and quantum skipped off to find his “much better dimension”. He swung his legs over the side of the bunk and began to have his second Northern mid-life crisis.Set during the events of Series XII: Skipper, Lister misses Rimmer and realises he didn’t learn a smegging thing from Rimmer’s Ace years. (Series VII: Blue)





	1. Backstory & Exposition

Lister awoke in a cold sweat with a hand down his boxers. He’d been dreaming again. The same smegging dream ever since Rimmer had gone “See ya!” and quantum skipped off to find his “much better dimension”. It wasn’t the first time Lister had had dreams about his bunkmate. Back in the early days of the late Second Tech’s resurrection, Lister had dreamt up all manner of increasingly cartoonish ways of getting back at Rimmer for all the ways he smegged him off. The giant game of _Mouse Trap_ with Rimmer as the only mouse was one of his personal favourites. He swung his legs over the side of the bunk and began to have his second Northern mid-life crisis. 

It wasn’t even the first time Lister had had _weird _dreams about his bunkmate either. Just over a quarter of a century or so ago Rimmer’s worst nightmare in the form of an alternate dimension him doing a hell of a lot better than he was had swaggered into a crashed Starbug, saving them all from sinking into a very big very wet puddle. This Rimmer knew what a thrust to input ratio was and how to work it out, spoke in a octave that didn’t cause auditory pain to dogs, and _smiled_. Actually _smiled._ Not the pained mocking grimaces or smug sneering of regular Arnie J. but actual warm _genuine _toothy smiles. Who called Lister “Skipper” and didn’t manage to tone match it with scum. And Dave Lister, last human alive, stuck three million years out in deep space with a neurotic dead man, a psychopathic cat, and a cleaning mechanoid with a guilt chip constantly in danger of overload, affection starved Dave Lister fell like an oversized _Jenga_ tower in an _Oktoberfest_ beer garden. Ace Rimmer: what a guy! Sure his taste in flight suit could be best described as bakofoil chic but nobody’s perfect.

For thirty six whole hours it was perfect. Finally someone who _wanted _to hang out with _him_. Who _wanted _to listen to Rastabilly Skank instead of having the skutters make streamers out of the tape ribbon. Thirty six whole hours where even regular Rimmer’s near constant snides and thinly veiled remarks regarding his double’s dubious taste in sexual partners couldn’t knock the smile off his face.

“Rimmer, he’s _you_.” Lister had eventually blurted out in the sleeping quarters, tired of the whining. They had been having variations of the same argument ever since Starbug got up into the big black and back to the small rouge one.

“He’s _not me_!” Rimmer snapped back.

Shortly after, Ace had called him into the docking bay.

“Skipper, got a mo?”

Ace was leaning against the gantry, nonchalantly sewing up a large gash in his left forearm. Lister knew what was coming.

“Skipper, I’ve decided I’m not going to stay.” He sighed through his cigarette. “Him and me, it would never work. I just can’t stand to be near the man. To see myself so warped, so bitter, so weasely. The man’s a maggot.”

Well he wasn’t wrong but Lister still couldn’t help a protective surge of defensiveness all the same.

“Look, don’t be too hard on Rimmer. You got the break, he didn’t. He’s just bitter.”

And so Ace had left, leaving behind sporadic dreams of his return. Dreams of jamming out to the twisted tape of Robert Hardy reads _Tess of the D’urbervilles_. Of playing pool in the _Copa Cabana_ after a few pints. Of staggering down ocean grey corridors at three in the morning, arm in arm belting _Sheep Coral Iron_. 

And six years later he did.

Ace was back, and Ace was dying. And to top it all off, Ace wasn’t even the same Ace. That Ace had caught the business end of a neutron tank in dimension 165. This Ace was a hard light hologram with a fatal power leakage. He wasn’t the first Ace, not even the second. There had been, well let’s just say more than a couple. The dying Ace had synopsised the entire legend to Lister in the medibay. Before an Ace dies they recruit their replacement from an alternate dimension. Ever since the duplicate fiasco back in the early days of Red Dwarf had highlighted to Lister that Rimmer was in fact capable of positive character development, he had been slowly but surely trying to push him into a mindset that he could more easily stand. The proof was there in the Aces, but it was slow going. Now they only had twelve hours.

“I’m getting cold feet Listy.” Rimmer, hunched over a gantry in Ace’s flight suit sighed. “I’m not sure if I can go through with it. Leave, I mean. _Be _Ace.” 

Lister hunched over next to him, idly playing with the locator beacon for Ace’s coffin. Normally a scared Rimmer was a bitchy and blamey Rimmer. Shouting angrily at the world because no one’s listening. Whenever he failed he just got up, shouted a bit, blamed his parents, and got on. This Rimmer was already defeated, borderline depressed, _resigned _to failure. And more honest than he had ever been.

“You heard what he said.” Lister shrugged. Rimmer had always made a big deal about wanting to be an officer, to be the big hero with the shiny medals. To be anywhere but _here _with anyone but _them_. “It’s your destiny.” 

“It’s my destiny to be a smug self-satisfied git?” Rimmer scoffed. The irony as lost as kiwi in the Arctic. 

“Alright so he was a bit full of himself.” Lister admitted. “But you can be a different kind of Ace. It’s up to you.”

Rimmer looked forlorn.

_Why didn’t I say something then? _Lister chided himself. _I could have said something then. If he was looking for a reason to stay, that could have been it. Hell, if he was looking for a reason to go that could have been it too. Either way he would have been happy._

That just got him thinking about all the other squandered moments. Life or death situations where he could have, _should have _swallowed his damn pride and told the smegging git he did actually care.

_Like the psi moon. Classic example of Lister the stupid_, he thought to himself. He remembered the look of utter shock under the weight of his hand on Rimmer’s temporarily solid thigh. The dawning understanding. The reluctant acceptance that this wasn’t just some twisted fever dream. Then, he also remembered the bright eyes turning dull. The blissful smile shattering to the ground. For one bright shining moment Rimmer truly believed that one person in the whole universe, _one, _believed him to be worth something. To be worth caring about. And Lister’s stupid back-peddling panicking pride had to go and kick his newfound self-worth in the goonies.

Which is why when Rimmer finally did leave to be Ace, Lister started having dreams again. Dreams where he would put things right. Rimmer would come back and they’d _get on_. 

But this one was _really smegging weird_.

Unlike the returning Ace dreams, dreamRimmer was just Rimmer. Not all smiles and jokes and… stuff of dreams gone by. Not an idealised Rimmer created purely from fantasy for fantasy. When dreamRimmer returned from his quantum skipping he had of course mellowed but then so had nondreamRimmer. They all had. After nearly thirty years stuck together in the same space tub they couldn’t have helped it. Even when nondreamAce had returned and resumed his post as nondreamRimmer he was the same old neurotic smegger who ate his food in alphabetical order and followed corridor direction lines with a ruler and set square to make sure they were in fact regulation distance and straight. He just didn’t shout as much anymore.

The dream always began the same and ended the same. Rimmer would return from quantum skipping, proclaim that _this _dimension was not in fact the best choice for long-term occupancy and would start packing what little remained of his camphor wood chest. At which point Lister would finally use the word “care” in a proper sentence that didn’t also include the word “don’t” and Rimmer would reluctantly admit that the only reason this dimension sucked was because he had found one where he had actually been cared about but hadn’t been resurrected as a hologram so he was more or less filling a dead man’s shoes but now he’d rather stay in this one. Then things would get a bit touchy feely for a while inter-spliced with some blaming over how long it took and the usual unlikely holoromance stock dialogue. How long have you – Why didn’t you – No it’s my fault really – Barf city.

Lately though, Lister’s subconscious had been skipping through the holoromance dialogue and straight through to the XXX adaptation banned from broadcast content. He really needed a new hobby.


	2. Smutty Dreams & Rimmer’s Return

The ship’s chronometer clicked over to 3:03am and Lister stirred. Still half asleep he dangled himself over the edge of the bunk and dropped with an audible _thunk_ onto the floor. Wobbling slightly he meandered over to the bathroom, did what he had to, and then slowly staggered back. He slipped into the lower bunk, sliding under the duvet, and sighed happily.

A nonplussed huff of air through railway tunnel nostrils greeted him as did a swatting hand, absentmindedly trying to pull him further into the blankets. Rimmer was back.

“You’re letting all the warm air out.” He sleepily moaned, hauling himself half over Lister’s chest, one leg sprawled up over his hips. Lister didn’t argue that technically Rimmer couldn’t feel cold let alone catch one, even in hard light.

“S’all right,” he said instead, “I’m a pretty sizeable draft excluder these days.”

A ghost of a smile floated across Rimmer’s face as he absentmindedly kneaded Lister’s squishy midsection.

“You should come running with _me_.” He pestered. “Calisthenics in the morning. A brisk jog.”

Lister turned up his nose.

“Just think of how much more _energy_ you’ll have.” Rimmer cooed, kneading lower.

“Says the smegger running on triple A’s.”

Lister gasped as Rimmer’s wandering hand latched onto his balls through his boxers and _squeezed_.

“What was that?” Rimmer growled into Lister’s ear.

“Alright, alright. Double A’s. An eight-volt pack. Twelve at least!” Lister keened as he was worked like a stress ball.

Rimmer chuckled and loosened his grip, softly kissing down the jawline in front of him.

“You’re a right bastard, you know that?” Lister moaned as the nibbling reached his ribs.

“Absolument!” The hologram beamed, pausing to rest both arms across the top of the boxer’s waistband. “But I am _your _bastard.” In one swift movement he wrenched down the faded palm trees and descended upon Lister’s juicy bits like an apple bobbing champion at the Reading Festival.

Lister didn’t care who heard. He could always blackmail the Cat with shiny things and order Kryten to erase the appropriate memories. He threw back his head and moaned. Openly. Wantonly. Great deep breathy moans as he was licked and squeezed and _sucked_. And _oh _was Rimmer _good_ at the sucking. And the _swallowing. _Folded up at the bottom of the bunk he’d continue the massaging with one hand, the other braced on the mattress and he would just _go for it._ Like an ice lollie quickly melting in the sun. First he would lick a huge stripe up the underside from base to tip, teasing the head. Then return to the base and suck the sides all the way up then back down. Before finally, _finally, _after one final teasing kiss and lick to the very tip, the whole smegging thing would go down. In one breath Lister would be balls deep in that gorgeously simulated mouth. Pinned, Lister would ache to pull out just enough to thrust back in. To feel those soft lips around his head. That tongue currently flat against his shaft as he was swallowed around over and over and over. Logically he knew Rimmer didn’t_ technically_ _need _to breathe but there was still something dangerously erotic about the whole thing.

He threw his head back and moaned, “Oh _Rimmer!”_

When Kryten woke him for breakfast around half-eleven, he was back in his own bunk. Having apparently returned on auto-pilot at some point in the early hours. If indeed he had ever left at all.

“Still no sign of Mr. Rimmer yet, sir.” Kryten chirped as he spooned copious amounts of Madras sauce onto a stack of fresh pancakes.

Lister shook his head and fished under the pillow for some smokes. Another smegging dream. There was that theory though, wasn’t there? About dreams really being telepathic gateways into alternate dimensions? He shook his head again. He didn’t really want to be thinking about alternate dimensions when he was busy moping about in this one.

After breakfast what remained of the day consisted of moping about on the lounge playing Zero-G, moping about in the movie theatre half-watching _His Girl Friday_, and then finally moping around back in the quarters losing yet another game of poker. He was starting to regret teaching Cat how to actually play. 

“Oh, come on! One more hand, I want to win my match sticks back.”

Just as Cat was about to deal, a blinding blue flash lit up the entryway and a morose looking Rimmer materialised. 

“Oh, sir, you’re back!” Kryten disengaged tact mode. “Did you find a universe where you felt less of a loser?”

Rimmer’s face contorted in disgust as he dropped the quantum skip remote onto the floor and stomped repeatedly on it.

“Deal him in.” Lister beamed. “Infinite clearly wasn’t enough.” His heart soared and then sank like a cheap novelty jellyfish lamp as Rimmer poured himself onto a chair, looking absolutely wretched. More depressed bloodhound than man, pale face drooping, eyes unfocused. And he was unusually quiet about the whole thing. He didn’t even attempt to arrange the matchstick pile so they all pointed the same way.

After losing three more hands to the Cat, Kryten had loudly announced his intention to polish B deck and trotted out. Then the Cat had gotten distracted by a loose thread on his lapel and had hurried off to rectify it, leaving Lister and Rimmer alone at the table. 

“D’you wanna talk about it?” Lister eventually asked.

“Not really, no.”

“Come on, man.” There was already so much they didn’t talk about and lot of it with good reason. “They can’t all have been as bad as -” Rimmer’s chin shot up and his eyes blew wide. Lister stopped himself from verbalising what his brain had auto filled. The Low Ship. Rimmerworld. The Psi Moon. Better Than Life. And about one hundred and one other horrifying memories they both carried around with them.

“There was this one reality,” Rimmer began, slowly. “I had everything I thought I wanted. Navigation officer. Married. Kids. I wasn’t dead. We were back in our own solar system. Back on a functioning Red Dwarf. A non-senile Holly.”

“So what was the problem?”

“_You _were the problem.”

Lister mocked offence. “_Me?_”

“Yes, _you. You _were the _smegging captain!_” Rimmer spat and shot up off the stool to pace. “Only he _wasn’t _you. He was a slimy, scheming, backstabbing, blackmailing, shots at ten in the morning, married to a stripper, rich, insufferable _git!”_

_“_So basically he was you.” Lister quipped, regretting the words before he’d even closed his mouth. Rimmer paused and started picking at the side seam of his trouser leg.

“Then, there was another Red Dwarf.” He continued softly, “Another quarters. It was cozy and warm like the drawing room of an 18th century general’s home. Candelabras and leather armchairs. Rugs.” He gestured vaguely around at where these additions had been. “And you,” he pointed at Lister from across the room, “_you _were in a _suit.” _

_“_Get out of town!” Lister scoffed.

“You were.” Rimmer insisted. “And, you had Kryten helping you catalogue a. –“ He made finger quotes in the the air, “_not inconsiderable_ vintage wire collection.”

“No way.” Lister took a long swig from a flat can of lager. “Why didn’t you stay there then?”

“The rats.” He stated, matter of factly. “Plus they already had a me so…”

“Rats?”

“Yup. Three whole decks of ‘em.”

“I can’t stand rats.”

Rimmer brightened up.

“Then you won’t want to know just how much your double doesn’t.” He raised a suggestive eyebrow. Lister spat his larger across the table.

“_Smegging hell_.”


End file.
